Vanir Ausf B

Disappointing, but for 25 bucks I'll still get it as long as the AI is good

I'm curious about this as well.

Why wouldn't it? I assume the weight of the round is one of the main factors. That would be the same for every shot. LOL! Hint: this has been tested many, many times including earlier in this very thread by Soddball. Very sure. Unlike you, I actually do test these things to get the real numbers How often is "often enough"? Are you talking about all German vehicles or only certain ones? How often do allied vehicle miss the first shot? [ May 02, 2002, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

If you don't assume the tank always has a round already chambered for the first shot (or the correct round), yes it does. If you were serious about this you could easily test for it. But I know you're not It's a red herring Not a rare event, any rare event. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference. [ May 02, 2002, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

MGs with only one man left do suffer a FP penalty according to Steve.

MGs in CM never actually run out of ammo. Like squads they just go to "low" status and fire less frequently. If personal arms are considered to be included in the MG firepower rating then I assume the personal arms are also considered to be low on ammo at this time. Obviously this is an abstraction. I suspect we will get more detailed modeling in the rewrite. We may even see MG crews be able to abandon the MG instead of always defending it to the death [ May 02, 2002, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

There is a tendency to underestimate the frequency of rare events. Rare events happen all the time, both in real life and the game. You should expect to see them often. There is nothing wrong with this as long as it isn't the same event over and over. Then there could be a problem, but even then testing would have to be done to be sure. A few weeks ago someone posted a documented case of a German 88 AT gun missing a Soviet tank at 50m. In real life, not the game. **** really does happen and one of the best things about CM is the fact that it reflects this. However, there are a lot of people who don't like seeing their units perform outside of what they consider the norm, and get all worked up when it costs them a game. That's not to suggest everything in CM is 100% accurate. It's not. It's just that when you say "I saw my Panther miss twice at 20m. That should be impossible!" it doesn't really mean much. If a round misses, where the little shot graphic hits is semi-randomly determined. Under the right circumstances you can see shots go through buildings and hills. Call it a bug if you want. It doesn't mean anything.

If you're looking for some way in which CM short changes the Tiger it can be found in the undermodeling of the shatter gap of 76mm ammo vs. the Tiger's armor (according to Rexford) and the probable over-availability of tungsten. Hopefully (probably) fixed in CMBB.

Actually silhouette counts for less than that, and less than I thought as well. For example, at 500m the 76L54 has a 59% first hit chance against a Tiger (120 silhouette) and a 52% first hit chance against a Pz IVH (92 silhouette). This is only a 13% difference despite a 30% difference in silhouette values. EDITED for bad math. [ April 30, 2002, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

In order to factor out the much larger size of the Tiger, you need to fire the Sherman at a target about the same size as itself. So if you use a Wirblewind instead of the Tiger (silhouette value 105 compared to the Sherman 76's 104) you get the following first hit probablities for the 76L54 vs. the 88L56: 250m 88: 75% 76: 77% 500m 88: 54% 76: 57% 1000m 88: 29% 76: 29% 1500m 88: 15% 76: 14% 2000m 88: 8% 76: 6% As you can see the differnces at short range are really quite small. I strongly believe these numbers show that the Sherman's greater effectiveness vs. the Tiger at short range is due mostly to higher rate of fire rather than greater accuracy. [ April 30, 2002, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I think it also has a lot to due with the total amount of initial energy. I should have been more clear. I am well aware that the principle is realistic, but the differences between the 50mm and 88mm at 2000m are not as large as I would have expected in my totally unscientific opinion. So it was actually the amount to which it is modeled that I was questioning. I knew they were there, but I could have sworn I had read somewhere that the Germans made the decision to commit them against the British. Bah. I know nothing. [ April 30, 2002, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

IIRC American forces did not encounter the Tiger in combat in Europe until the Ardennes offensive in December (at least in Northern Europe, they may have in Italy and they did in N Africa as well). I'm sure some grog will slap me around if I'm wrong. [ April 30, 2002, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

The comparative accuracy of guns in CM is simply a function of muzzle velocity. The gun with the higher MV will be more accurate all else being equal. 88L56 MV: 773 mps 76L54: 793 mps The 76 has a higher MV and therefore is more accurate in CM. The fact that the Tiger is a bigger target than the Sherman adds to it. CM does seem to model the fact that larger rounds are more accurate at long range than smaller rounds, even with lower initial velocity. For example, the 50mm gun experiences a greater decrease in accuracy from 100m to 2000m than the 88mm. So, the 88 should become more accurate relative to the 76 as range increases. However, the difference does not appear to become significant until ranges outside of those seen in a typical CM game. How realistic this is I don't know.

I hope you don't mean that literally. According to the targeting tool a veteran Tiger I has a 74% chance to hit on the first shot vs. a stationary Firefly at 300m. I don't know about vs. moving targets; you will have to run tests to get that number approximated. However, I strongly suspect you will have a hard time keeping that Firefly alive for 6 shots very often. I think you were just very unlucky.

I'm currious how this guy manages to be posting while "unregistered".

I answered this question in my first post. I answered this earlier as well. I can live with that. I completely agree. Even the major changes being proposed here by some would only lessen the god's eye "problem" marginally. The player would still know everything all his units knew, it would just limit his ability to act on it by distancing the player from the decision making. In truth, the only way to 100% remove the god's eye issue entirely is for every unit in the game to be controled by a seperate player... or the AI. Neither will ever happen but the multi-multiplayer feature in the rewrite will be something to look forward to.

Oh, I understand completely. What you must understand is that currently in CM the player assumes the role of the MG gunner when he gives the order to fire, so there is no logical reason why he should not be able to specify an exact target unless you are going to say that the player is the platoon LT, not the sergeant or corporal leading the squad, manning the MG. This is what people mean when they talk about making CM a "command level" game: the player gives general orders to his units and lets the TacAI carry them out. This is a different type of game than CM, and one I would not like as much for reasons I and others have explained.

This:

Yes, I was talking abstractions. In fact, I agree with everything you said.

Units pinned outside of C&C already are of marginal usefullness. Command delays of over 1 minute are common in this situation and return fire is usually ineffective. Extreme FOW is already a feature of CMBB. Not allowing units out of C&C to target specific spotted enemy units in LOS would not make sense for the reasons Kip just outlined.

This is true, but ignores the fact that Russian tanks are based upon a much different design philosophy. Russian tanks are ~20 tons lighter than the M1 and have better strategic mobility. They have better anti-personel capabilities (although the M1 is getting a beehive round soon). They also cost about 1/3 as much (IIRC). Is a M1 better than a T-80U? Yes. Is it better than 3 T-80Us? Depends... [ April 25, 2002, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

IIRC Russian T-80s also use a turbine.

I know the feeling all too well No problem. I'm sorry, if I had realized this thread was "special" I would have avoided it Seriously, I understand what you are saying. If by "the larger scale stuff" you are refering to the god's eye view issue, I will simply restate that I do not believe there is any solution to it outside of multi-multiplayer that would not be draconian and piss people off, as you so well put it earlier. However, don't let my negativism discourage you from talking about it. [ April 23, 2002, 11:29 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

I have no idea why you think I am implying that since I have specifically stated otherwise in my third post on page 4: Tom, I wouldn't have a problem with this as long as you could view all spotted enemy units simultaneously as you now can, rather than only in small groups at a time. That would be a real chore.

It solves the problem of all units automatically spotting an enemy unit as soon as one friendly unit spots it. That is the definition of absolute spotting. Under relative spotting friendly units can be in LOS of enemy units and not see them even if other friendly units can. This introduces a significant uncertainty factor into planning as the player can no longer count on a unit to engage the enemy as soon as it moves into LOS. It may take a short while to spot, a long while, or not at all. I would also bet that units in C&C with each other will be able to help each other spot to a certain extent not allowed units not in C&C with each other, which would add yet another incentive for the player to keep his units in C&C. This is all more realistic than the current model even with the player still having control over all his units. This question of whether the player will be able to manually target unspotted units with area fire, and how to prevent that if it is disallowed, will be an issue that will have to be dealt with. I don't have a problem with any of these features except this: This just makes the game more difficult to play without increasing realism. The player still has the same information available to him as he did before, he just has to click all over the place to find it. PITA. Keep in mind that CMBB already has an extreme FOW setting that may very well do much of what you suggest and then some. We'll see. I expect to see SOPs expanded significantly in the rewrite.